News More history textbook whitewashing?

Citizens group 'Kodomo to Kyokasho Zenkoku Net 21' reported that information on the 1945 Battle of Okinawa had been scaled back in some Japanese textbooks planned to be used from the 2024 school year, leaving out the Japanese military's involvement in mass suicides on the islands after U.S. troops landed.

According to the group, while the three publishers all touch on mass suicides recorded in the Okinawa Prefecture village of Yomitan and other locations on the islands, two of them state that it was a result of Okinawan residents being "cornered by U.S. military attacks" and includes no reference to Japanese military involvement. The other publisher's pre-revision textbook said, "Children, women and even elderly residents were all mobilized for the war and embroiled in the conflict," but in the new edition the phrase "were all mobilized" has been replaced with, "They were cornered by a fierce American military assault that burned deep into cave bunkers," blaming mass suicides solely on the U.S. invasion.

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According to Net21, the leading cause of mass suicides during the Battle of Okinawa was the Japanese military not allowing residents to surrender, driving them into a corner. Still, this sort of description has been removed (from the textbooks). History shows that the Japanese military did not fulfil its duty to protect residents.

The education ministry is holding exhibitions of revised textbooks across Japan in June. Details are available on the website of each prefectural education board. Net21 points out that in recent years "not just on the Battle of Okinawa but also on territorial disputes and topics on the Constitution, were subject to more one-sided descriptions that reject various perspectives and enforce the government's views.

It was JK Rowling who pretty much summed up a great lot of my psyche and explained succinctly why the people I name as my heroes are my heroes.

"It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends." "There are all kinds of courage," said Dumbledore, smiling. "It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. I therefore award ten points to Mr. Neville Longbottom."

My only complaint is, I am pretty sure it takes MORE courage to stand up to your friends, including those who are not your friends but you have come to believe are.

Well the people who get into what is supposed to be OUR governments are very often worse than the people we are told are our enemies. This point that is being deleted from the textbook is a vital reminder that just because some people were born in the same country as us, speak our language and got into the government DOES NOT mean they are good people who are friends. Personally I think the higher you go the more likely people in the government are to be utter sociopaths incapable of anything resembling human empathy who have only learned how to say some words and do some actions that mimic having any. They don't care about you or the country....they only pretend to so they can enrich and empower themselves.

Those people need to be identified, isolated and removed from any chance of power. Its them that want such warnings removed you know. But until the day we finally start cutting out those cancers, we need these textbook passages to remind us that sometimes we have to tell our own governments "HELL NO! NOT DOING THAT! IN FACT HERE IS A KNUCKLE SANDWICH FOR YOU!"